Some ashes will never be claimed

By Peter Munro

11 August 2013 — 3:00am

What little remains of 500 people is stacked in filing cabinets, six shelves high. Gone and all but forgotten, their ashes are stored inside two-litre plastic containers stretching back years: Mr Medzur, died March 2005, aged 89; Ms Wright, died April 2007, aged 62; baby Orton, died 2008, less than a year old.

Common to each is not their manner of death but final resting place: the unclaimed ashes storeroom at Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park. Operations manager Tony Brown opens the cabinets to reveal rows of ashes left behind by loved ones. ''I am not religious but I do believe one of the things that should be put to bed are the ashes,'' he says.

Storage: Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park's Tony Brown with some of the unclaimed ashes.

Photo: James Alcock

Some 500 containers of ashes await collection here, among thousands of unclaimed remains in crematoria across Australia. Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens and Crematorium has 700 lots of unclaimed ashes. Springvale Botanical Cemetery, in Melbourne's south-east, holds the remains of about 200 people long dead.

''A lot of people often don't want to finalise something because it means the end,'' Mr Brown says. ''It's very emotional for them. Taking the ashes home that's reality, that's mum or dad in the box, and not everybody can live with that.''

He had to build a second storage room at Eastern Suburbs to hold the ashes, which at one stage topped 2300. Many of the remains are scattered over the roses, after repeated attempts over several years to contact families.

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The count of unclaimed ashes has increased along with the number of cremations. Invocare, which runs 14 crematoria in NSW and Queensland, says the ashes of about 2000 people are left behind each year. ''It should be natural to collect them but some people don't have anyone to care for them,'' says general manager Armen Mikaelian.

''Sometimes it is just dysfunctional families … Even if they had a family, sometimes they are happy to see the back of that person.''

NSW crematoria are required by law to retain ashes for a ''reasonable time''. In Victoria, the minimum time limit is two years. Crematoria must make several attempts to contact the deceased's next of kin or nominated ''holder'' of the ashes, to arrange collection, before disposing of remains.

The Northern Suburbs Crematorium, the largest in NSW, has hundreds of unclaimed ashes each year; most are ultimately buried on site. ''A lot of families can't decide what they are going to do with dad,'' says general manager Brett Brennen.

''Some people just forget about it. Some people just don't care.''

Some people struggle to ''confront the physical reality of death'', says Christopher Hall, director of the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement. ''I don't think we can interpret it as people being unfeeling. Ashes are a stark reminder of death and I think people find it difficult to co-exist with that.''

The Australian Funeral Directors Association has advised members to return their growing number of unclaimed ashes to crematoria. NSW president Warwick Hansen says the declining rate of ashes being interred at crematoria is partly to blame for ashes being left behind.

Increasingly, many people are opting for virtual memorials such as HeavenAddress, which has about 800,000 online listings for the dearly departed.

''I think people have a perception that when the cremation has taken place the body has been disposed of,'' Mr Hansen says. ''It's not a matter that people don't care. In their minds they think it is over, the body has been reduced to ashes and they don't need to collect them.''